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A small company named Edison Jr. had a plan: they were going to simplify people’s lives, reduce clutter, and make a fair amount of money while doing it. The product that would do this was the POP Portable Power Station, at least until Apple said “no”.

The POP is essentially just a nicely designed charging device. Its design is reminiscent of the rest of Edison Jr. catalog, with its distinctive cylindrical layout, handsome coating, and fun logo. What made the device controversial were the choices of connection ports — POP would allow charging for Apple iDevices as well as the company’s new Lightning standard and microUSB devices (like Android phones). This did not sit well with Apple, and the company has demanded that Edison Jr. shut the project down completely.

What’s interesting is that Edison Jr. was willing to remove the microUSB option, perhaps sensing the futility of trying to end the Capulet-Montague relationship between Apple and its smartphone rivals. But Lightning is an Apple standard; surely, the company would not object to a charging solution for its own devices…

As it turns out, they would and did. Edison Jr. has already ended the Kickstarter project (which collected almost three times its original $50,000 goal), and has refunded all donations.

Apple’s aggressive stance on intellectual property is of course well-known, with several high profile copyright lawsuits just wrapped, and more on the horizon. The tiny POP charger initiative was hardly a threat to the tech giant, but it was technically a direct competitor to Apple’s own charging solutions.

Even with licensing fees, the POP would likely have been a losing proposition for Apple. Edison Jr. project an impressive power-price ratio which, if realized, would have thrown Apple’s own pricing scheme into sharp relief. After all, Apple has enough people grumbling about pricing already, they don’t need start-ups doing better and for half the price.